Opening and Closing The Arm Ring

Under combat stress when your heart rate is high you will lose fine motor control of your arms. Meditation and breath work practice will delay this, however in the reality of melee combat your heart rate will climb and you will naturally do one of two motions. You will either adopt the infant startle reflex or brining both arms up or you will cover your face and ball up into a fetal position. Rather than fight nature, it’s better to make use of this and adapt these. When your arms are up in a circular posture this is called the open guard. It should form a circular structure that you can use for attack and defense.

A closed guard is based on protecting the head, you connect your forearms together and cover up. Generally the open guard is seen in grappling while the closed guard is seen in striking arts. Its important to train the open and closed guard structures so that it doesn’t matter if you have a sword, a knife, or empty hands. Every effective martial arts technique will fit into the natural startle and cover instincts. You should be able to use these concept flexibly and apply them along horizontal and vertical planes so that you occupy a complete sphere of combat and can be effective in both armed and unarmed melee combat.

Because fine motor coordination is unreliable as heart rates climb into the grey and red zones, footwork is essential. Broadly speaking we divide footwork into angles and circles. You want to freely enter and exit and step where it is inconvenient to be attacked.